Obviously, his experience was incredibly traumatic, and there's no possible way that I could sympathize with that. But apparently, it is his belief that he had died and was spontaneously ressurected. Also, it has apparently given him Robert Frost levels of poetic capacity. xD

Myth-weavers: I am asking you - Really try as hard as you can not to turn this into a science vs. religion debate, please. For the sake of sanity, okay? I don't want another close/lock/infraction on my rapsheet. Okay? Thanks.
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What I want is your opinion on whether or not he's crazy and the science surrounding out of body experiences. And what caused him to believe that he'd been ressurected. When people are revived in a hospital, does this sort of thing occur all that often? How many of those people throw it up to god, or meditate this much on it? How many of those people, on the other hand, feel absolutely nothing whatsoever?

But, as an aside, personally, I think this is one of the most powerful reinforcers of people's faith in religion and the afterlife.

Part of the issue is that we have had a relatively recent shift in definition as to what it means to be dead, and the less rational aspects of our conciousness still cling to older definitions. Less than 100 years ago if someone was unconcious and not breathing they were dead. A spontaneous ressurecton from that state is certainly possible- it happens all the time in

Where Fugu which is misprepared sends people into a deathlike state for three days

Japan But clinical death is a different matter, and nobody has been documented to have returned from that.

Part of the issue is that we have had a relatively recent shift in definition as to what it means to be dead, and the less rational aspects of our conciousness still cling to older definitions. Less than 100 years ago if someone was unconcious and not breathing they were dead. A spontaneous ressurecton from that state is certainly possible- it happens all the time in

Where Fugu which is misprepared sends people into a deathlike state for three days

Japan But clinical death is a different matter, and nobody has been documented to have returned from that.

That's the butt of the issue.

The problem is that we don't know this man's background, whether or not he was in a coma, his heart stopped. Anything really.

Current medical science attributes 'out of body experiences' to a temporary disruption of the parietal lobe. This is the section of the brain that is involved, among other things, in proprioception. In other words, it keeps track of our limbs relative to the body. When that shuts down, we literally lose the sense of our own body's existence in space and time.

There have already been many studies linking this experience to peoples' sense of religious ecstasy. We can literally zap somebody's brain and make them think god is taking them away - and some of them continue to believe that the experience is genuine even after they're told that we induced it.

This guy probably got conked on the head when he landed. Parietal lobe stopped working properly. Cue hysterical reaction.

I agree, Ted. He certainly doesn't seem to me to be one who is capable of a hysterical reaction - he seems to be level-headed, even mentioned earlier how he wasn't a particularly religious man. Still...

It's amazing to me how some people can be inflicted with great pain, damage and discomfort and still live through a situation, yet others seem to 'blink out', dying of natural causes so easily. kinda makes me wonder if you have a modicum of predetermination to your life. I know that sounds spooky/crazy/niaeve(sp)/religious, and I'm not trying to pump this into a religious discussion, but there are too many things that are immediately chalked up to chance. But that's just me, so don't everyone jump down my throat right away.

There is some thought that as you die, since your brain can still function for a while in most cases, the remaining thoughts you might have are so vivid and intense that they give you a feeling of having died, even though 'it's not you time' (or, if you prefer, your body hasn't 'given up the ghost'), creating an out-of-body experience. If you're drawn back in and wake up, it's a religious revelation. If not, you're not going to tell anyone, anyway. Such an intense situation and 'seeing your life flash' can be understood when the plane is going down at 100 mph, as with Micky Robinson, or with someone living through a long stay on a death bed with lots of time to think about it.

Still, personally, I find it hard to dispell the afterlife possibility.

The primate brain has evolved to be very good at detecting patterns in apparently random input. Sounds in the forest, movement in the tall grass of the veldt, that sort of thing. Unforunately, we're a little too good at it. We (not just humans but apes) have a well documented tendency to see patterns even when we're presented with deliberately randomized information. Ever lay back on a cloudy day and daydream about the sort of animals the clouds look like? That's your brain desperately trying to make sense out of random visual data and failing miserably. The best it can come up with is 'that looks like a birdy'.

Put another way, randomness makes our brains uncomfortable. We feel an instinctual, unavoidable urge to try to make sense of it. And when we can't, we actually lie to ourselves in order to alleviate the discomfort. It crops up as an error in most forms of science. It's called apophenia.

mendeley.com has a bunch of interesting papers on apophenia and intentionality. Highly recommended.